In practice, it is frequently difficult and costly to deliver medicinal compounds to animals, especially if such animals are not kept in enclosures or specifically herded and contained for that purpose. Typically, during outbreaks of disease in wild animals, it is necessary to dart diseased animals in order to deliver the required medicinal compounds to the animals. This method of disease control and prevention is particularly stressful for the animals, and it is difficult to determine which animals have been darted, and which animals still need to be treated. In addition, using traditional systems, it is only possible to dart an animal with a single dose of a medicament—if more than one type of medicament is to be administered, the animal needs to be darted or injected more than once, or they need to be tranquilized individually, and then injected with the required medicaments.
The problem of treating animals, particularly wild animals, has been carried out in the past by development of delivery devices, such as darts and the like, that must pierce or penetrate the skin or tissue of the animal. Although these devices can effectively deliver the desired treatment, often the animal is exposed to the potential of post-treatment infections at the site of delivery. An additional problem with many of the prior art methods is that it can be difficult to determine or monitor which animal has been treated.
Other methods for remotely delivering agents to animals or humans can involve providing of aerosols in close proximity to the animal or person to be treated from a projectile that does not penetrate the skin or tissue. An example of this form of delivery can be found in US 2002/0129728 in the name of Jaycor Tactical Systems. Although this system is particularly suitable for personnel or crowd control, it cannot deliver a defined dosage of a biologically active agent as a treatment regime to an animal. The dosage is variable and would depend on how much ‘dust or powder’ is taken up in the lungs.
WO 2005/074672 in the name of Simon Robert Trickey describes a frangible missile containing a treating substance that can be applied to the surface of an animal. Unfortunately, this system has very limited application as it can only provide treatment to the surface of the skin. Most veterinary medicines and chemicals, however, do not act directly on the surface of the skin so this system does not solve the problem of providing an effective remote delivery system for animals.
A number of prior art treatment systems require delivery of an agent by piercing the skin or tissue. Examples in this regard include U.S. Pat. No. 6,419,655 in the name of Gonex Inc, U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,910 in the name of David Plass, WO 00/71967 and US 2004/0089186 in the name of Richard Brydges-Price. Each of these systems can cause injury to an animal and are susceptible to causing post treatment infection at the site of impact.
The present inventors have developed a system that allows the remote delivery of a veterinary treatment to an animal without causing material injury to the animal.